I don’t even mind forges taking a stance on AI. That’s fine. But I agree with Armin Ronacher here: banning projects that “mostly consist of code written by generative AI tools” is like the infamous Supreme Court “I know it when I see it” line. Yes of course I know a project mostly written by generative AI when I see it.
Fully agree. I am against AI slop, LLM overhyping, and cryto scams, as much as anybody, however:
> the main property I need from infrastructure [is for] it to be predictable, dependable, and reasonably neutral towards the legal Open Source software hosted on it.
I do not like to build on a foundation that could be ripped away from under my feet at any moment for arbitrary reasons.
> There are serious questions about copyright, labor, energy use, slop, and maintainers drowning in generated contributions. But
Way to not at all engage with any of that and just go on your merry way...
Sure, if you fail to acknowledge that the other side has valid points, it is easy to act like you're completely right and they are morons, and we all need to Kumbaya together, and forget about their views.
My only complaint about their site is that it mentions a generous free tier, but I have no way to seeing what exactly that free tier is.
Edit: Found it, but it wasn't obvious the navigation path to it. Would be nice if "free tier" on their home page was a link where it was there and clear.
> But these tools are also becoming part of how software is made. The Open Source world needs to figure out how to engage with that future, not just divide into camps.
No. They don't. This isn't a "you just have to deal". You can say no. It's OK to decide that it's not worth the smaller amount of positives to deal with the massive amount of negatives. If you disagree, start your own community.
I see. We should not divide into camps so the Austrians can sell their AI startups.
The only people dividing and ruining open source are those paid for it by AI companies. Sometimes indirectly, like NumPy through its various sponsors. Then suddenly a bureaucrat appears on a mailing list or elsewhere and announces that AI contributions need to be allowed.
I think introducing unpredictable new prohibitions is a much bigger problem than the specific bans on cryptocurrency or AI written code. Especially when it leads to existing code becoming unavailable and doesn't just ban new contributions violating the rules.
They weren't exactly unpredictable. People didn't predict it because they're used to dealing with faceless machine platforms instead of human platforms. GitHub bans projects rarely, and when it does, it's without any warning or rule change.
Agree substantially here, as I said elsewhere: the honest and respectful answer from the Codeberg community would have been: add resource limits, quotas, and a reviewed application form for new projects.
And maybe a statement that: Pre-existing clearly "vibe coded" projects providing little value to the community may be subject to review. Our resources are limited. Don't abuse them.
Instead it got framed in moralistic terms in many places, the actual voting process actively resisted all calls for clarification ("if you're a vibe coder you'll know, so stop trying to ask for clarification", the tone in online forums became nasty, and the result is both ambiguous and culturally poisoned and I decided to move my project ("good riddance!" call out the victors, "we got one of them!")
I do think the one substantial argument that was made through the threads, was around IP ownership laws. However I remain unconvinced.
Frankly if there's anywhere where I would most like to see AI generated work -- which is frankly based on weights generated from the broad and indiscriminate harvesting of other people's works -- is in copylefted software that takes the distillations of the efforts of the community and makes it available as free software with free software protections.
I understand not everyone shares that opinion, and they're welcome to different interpretations.
Like the author of the article I'm saddened to see this split. I am honestly curious to see where we are in 2-3 years on this topic.
> It can choose to be a smaller community with a stronger political identity, but that is a different ambition from being a broad and dependable European alternative to GitHub.
Wrong category. It doesn't want to. It's not a company. Might as well act on their beliefs.
Devs are so spoiled with free CI, running nonsensical workflows all the time for free. Imagine that multiplied by magnitudes thanks to AI. Just a waste of resources.
I think this move by Codeberg is lowkey genius. They're trying to build a community based on a set of shared values. Those who disagree with those values are now self-selecting out of the Codeberg community, which is exactly the point of passing these kinds of resolutions.
The fact that the rule is open for interpretation means that they can effectively shut down malicious actors (i.e those who intentionally misrepresent the degree of AI assistance in writing their code) before they become a problem. It becomes an exercise in judgement instead of a potentially exploitable/loophole-able set of hard and fast rules.
There's no issue with this. This isn't the supreme court. Your income is not on the line. It's a code hosting repository. Go to GitHub if it bothers you.
Only time will tell if this set of values holds up. Personally, I think they will, and that the rules will end up being less strict than people are making them out to be, and that relatively few projects will be removed from the platform.
these things always end with community disintegration. Eventually, some high profile user will cross the undefined line or leaders change and want to rewrite the rule then half the community will side with them and half will not.
Yes, every community disintegrates. Eventually. Individuals also disintegrate. Over the long run, planets and stars disintegrate. Best not to think about it too much lest you go insane.
> The fact that the rule is open for interpretation means that they can effectively shut down malicious actors
This also mean that some kind of charismatic leader can become a de-facto tyrant.
And btw, lone leader on top, bending the rules at will… that’s a trait all dictatorships have in common (hitler, mussolini, stalin, mao, etc). Just saying.
I think we should point out that Codeberg is a e.V. and that they have a Mission Statement [1]
> The mission of Codeberg e.V. is to build and maintain a free collaboration platform for creating, archiving, and preserving code and to document its development process.
As I understand it, they do not ban Crypto. Crypto is just an example for a category of projects that harm there reputation.
The formulation for AI generated code is different. It does not point out AI / LLMs as example for copyright issues. It does it the other way around.
on April 1 next year don't be surprised when lots of repositories come out with "surprise! i was AI all along". How are they ever going to know? Seems like a prompt like "remove all traces from this code that it was generated using AI" would one shot the whole repo and make it virtually impossible to justifiably claim it was vibecoded.
Is there any evidence of division? Are all the vibe-coders going to some codeberg2? One of the main complaints is that the banned projects don't have human users proportionate to their activity, so if they all go to codeberg2, then that forge would just be full of projects nobody cares about.
Are there any projects on codeberg that are getting banned and actually have significant human interest?
If codeberg decided to kick out spammers, nobody would decry the loss, so what's being lost here? Is it strictly slippery slope?
A great way to ensure that most developers will not be using Codeberg going forward. While there's a ton of drama around LLM use right now, anybody who's actually used this tech in anger understands that these tools really do work, and that they will only be used more in the future. I guess Codeberg is angling to become a small artisanal community, and there might certainly be a niche for that.
I have no particular problem with this decision/policy on the part of Codeberg.
I do have an issue with their "tainted code" project that labels various FLOSS projects as "AI tainted".
ardour.org has the follow AI policy statement:
---------
Using LLMs to generate code for Ardour
A word about licensing, copyright and LLMs ("AI"). We require all code contributed to Ardour to be licensed under the GPL (you may retain copyright, but the code must use the GPL). Currently, following Thaler vs. Perlmutter in March 2025, no LLM-generated code may be copyrighted in the USA. The GPL relies on copyright, and cannot function if copyright is not held. Consequently, if you use an LLM (Claude, Codex, CoPilot etc. etc) to create code, it cannot be included in Ardour.
If you want to use LLMs to explore and understand some of Ardour's source code, feel free. But we cannot accept PRs or patches or contributions that are not licensed under the GPL, and if you choose to be honest about it, this means that no LLM-generated code can be accepted by us.
---------
Yet this codeberg-adjacent project considers this project to be AI-tainted. If you're going to do something, do it right or don't do it at all.
There’s a lot of hue and cry over what’s just Yet Another Bulletin Board because it has a git repo attached? Just host this stuff yourself guys. It’s trivial these days.
I have my own remotes with my own CI and it’s all ultrafast because I can just make assumptions about the way I write software.
None of these platforms are necessary for development. Just take from them what you want and build your own universe. This grade of CRUD software is generally solved.
There are places you need other people. Stuff like ffmpeg or GPU kernels. But other kinds of code is kind of unimportant. Not being part of this community loses you nothing.
I don't understand why people are referring to Codeberg as competitors, or going to competition. They're WANTING you to go back => GitHub and consume the GitHub's resource's if you do not conform to their traditionalist nonprofit view.
They are not trying to retain you as a customer or even have customers ! They do not advertise ...! I am a [relatively responsible] utilisateur of AI and I truly do not understand the entitlement of some people.
It is a nonprofit, the vast majority of people complaining are not voters, donators, or members, while the vast majority of nonprofit members have chosen this view.
My personal opinion, is that the people clutching pearls are _scared_. There is a nagging feeling that deep down, they know the machine gods they love so dearly are _wrong_.
That if actions like these pick up momentum, if their "experiments" work, and more and more people start realizing that alternatives exist, the current places will end up as mostly "dead malls" as the people have moved on to the new places. And they will be facing at a gate where the people guarding it know where they came from, and why they are now asking for entry.
Its a choice they're totally allowed to make, I just wish we'd get an updated mission statement[1]:
"The mission of Codeberg e.V. is to build and maintain a free collaboration platform for creating, archiving, and preserving code and to document its development process."
Amended to include at the end ", as long as you use the tools we find agreeable."
68 comments
[ 0.24 ms ] story [ 27.6 ms ] thread> the main property I need from infrastructure [is for] it to be predictable, dependable, and reasonably neutral towards the legal Open Source software hosted on it.
I do not like to build on a foundation that could be ripped away from under my feet at any moment for arbitrary reasons.
Way to not at all engage with any of that and just go on your merry way...
Sure, if you fail to acknowledge that the other side has valid points, it is easy to act like you're completely right and they are morons, and we all need to Kumbaya together, and forget about their views.
[1]: https://codefloe.com/
Edit: Found it, but it wasn't obvious the navigation path to it. Would be nice if "free tier" on their home page was a link where it was there and clear.
Bluesky, from my daily use, seems like it’s thriving and full of varied and interesting people.
No. They don't. This isn't a "you just have to deal". You can say no. It's OK to decide that it's not worth the smaller amount of positives to deal with the massive amount of negatives. If you disagree, start your own community.
The only people dividing and ruining open source are those paid for it by AI companies. Sometimes indirectly, like NumPy through its various sponsors. Then suddenly a bureaucrat appears on a mailing list or elsewhere and announces that AI contributions need to be allowed.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49015635 Protecting our FLOSS commons from LLMs (blog.codeberg.org) 1 day ago, 144 comments
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49003386 Codeberg bans vibe coded projects (codeberg.org/codeberg) 2 days ago, 279 comments
And maybe a statement that: Pre-existing clearly "vibe coded" projects providing little value to the community may be subject to review. Our resources are limited. Don't abuse them.
Instead it got framed in moralistic terms in many places, the actual voting process actively resisted all calls for clarification ("if you're a vibe coder you'll know, so stop trying to ask for clarification", the tone in online forums became nasty, and the result is both ambiguous and culturally poisoned and I decided to move my project ("good riddance!" call out the victors, "we got one of them!")
I do think the one substantial argument that was made through the threads, was around IP ownership laws. However I remain unconvinced.
Frankly if there's anywhere where I would most like to see AI generated work -- which is frankly based on weights generated from the broad and indiscriminate harvesting of other people's works -- is in copylefted software that takes the distillations of the efforts of the community and makes it available as free software with free software protections.
I understand not everyone shares that opinion, and they're welcome to different interpretations.
Like the author of the article I'm saddened to see this split. I am honestly curious to see where we are in 2-3 years on this topic.
Wrong category. It doesn't want to. It's not a company. Might as well act on their beliefs.
Devs are so spoiled with free CI, running nonsensical workflows all the time for free. Imagine that multiplied by magnitudes thanks to AI. Just a waste of resources.
The fact that the rule is open for interpretation means that they can effectively shut down malicious actors (i.e those who intentionally misrepresent the degree of AI assistance in writing their code) before they become a problem. It becomes an exercise in judgement instead of a potentially exploitable/loophole-able set of hard and fast rules.
There's no issue with this. This isn't the supreme court. Your income is not on the line. It's a code hosting repository. Go to GitHub if it bothers you.
Only time will tell if this set of values holds up. Personally, I think they will, and that the rules will end up being less strict than people are making them out to be, and that relatively few projects will be removed from the platform.
This also mean that some kind of charismatic leader can become a de-facto tyrant.
And btw, lone leader on top, bending the rules at will… that’s a trait all dictatorships have in common (hitler, mussolini, stalin, mao, etc). Just saying.
Reminds me of internal political disagreements.
> The mission of Codeberg e.V. is to build and maintain a free collaboration platform for creating, archiving, and preserving code and to document its development process.
[1] https://docs.codeberg.org/getting-started/what-is-codeberg/#...
As I understand it, they do not ban Crypto. Crypto is just an example for a category of projects that harm there reputation. The formulation for AI generated code is different. It does not point out AI / LLMs as example for copyright issues. It does it the other way around.
Github allows private repos, organization access control etc. I don't see how Codeberg is competition.
Are there any projects on codeberg that are getting banned and actually have significant human interest?
If codeberg decided to kick out spammers, nobody would decry the loss, so what's being lost here? Is it strictly slippery slope?
I do have an issue with their "tainted code" project that labels various FLOSS projects as "AI tainted".
ardour.org has the follow AI policy statement:
---------
Using LLMs to generate code for Ardour
A word about licensing, copyright and LLMs ("AI"). We require all code contributed to Ardour to be licensed under the GPL (you may retain copyright, but the code must use the GPL). Currently, following Thaler vs. Perlmutter in March 2025, no LLM-generated code may be copyrighted in the USA. The GPL relies on copyright, and cannot function if copyright is not held. Consequently, if you use an LLM (Claude, Codex, CoPilot etc. etc) to create code, it cannot be included in Ardour.
If you want to use LLMs to explore and understand some of Ardour's source code, feel free. But we cannot accept PRs or patches or contributions that are not licensed under the GPL, and if you choose to be honest about it, this means that no LLM-generated code can be accepted by us.
---------
Yet this codeberg-adjacent project considers this project to be AI-tainted. If you're going to do something, do it right or don't do it at all.
May I suggest a few replacements? "Plagiarize" or "excrete" are both more fitting in different ways.
I have my own remotes with my own CI and it’s all ultrafast because I can just make assumptions about the way I write software.
None of these platforms are necessary for development. Just take from them what you want and build your own universe. This grade of CRUD software is generally solved.
There are places you need other people. Stuff like ffmpeg or GPU kernels. But other kinds of code is kind of unimportant. Not being part of this community loses you nothing.
They are not trying to retain you as a customer or even have customers ! They do not advertise ...! I am a [relatively responsible] utilisateur of AI and I truly do not understand the entitlement of some people.
It is a nonprofit, the vast majority of people complaining are not voters, donators, or members, while the vast majority of nonprofit members have chosen this view.
My personal opinion, is that the people clutching pearls are _scared_. There is a nagging feeling that deep down, they know the machine gods they love so dearly are _wrong_.
That if actions like these pick up momentum, if their "experiments" work, and more and more people start realizing that alternatives exist, the current places will end up as mostly "dead malls" as the people have moved on to the new places. And they will be facing at a gate where the people guarding it know where they came from, and why they are now asking for entry.
"The mission of Codeberg e.V. is to build and maintain a free collaboration platform for creating, archiving, and preserving code and to document its development process."
Amended to include at the end ", as long as you use the tools we find agreeable."
[1]: https://docs.codeberg.org/getting-started/what-is-codeberg/